Sox Outfielders: Obviously Endangered

I don't know what's going on beyond the diamond, but the job of "Red Sox outfielder" has quickly become one of the most hazardous jobs in the market.

The latest addition to the quickly-growing list of injured outfielders is Cody Ross.... which really, truly sucks. I like Cody Ross, and he's been coming up with key hits for the team. Now he's out about eight weeks with a broken foot, and we are beyond replacements-for-replacement level players. We're at replacements-for-the-replacements-of-replacement level players. It's getting scary.

I know I've asked before, but can we please keep this team in bubble wrap when not in use? Seriously now! We've got three outfielders on the 60-day DL. Pretzels, Crawford, and  Ryan Kalish may be back this season, but we'll see what happens. Neither Ellsbury or Crawford have even begun baseball activities as far as I know.

McDonald, Repko (remember him?) and Ross are only on the 15 day DL, but again, it remains to be seen what will happen.

Red Sox... bubble wrap and duct tape. That's all you need. Get on it.

How Grand!: Sox Find Their Bats

In a completely unexpected turn of events, last night, the Red Sox discovered that (contrary to their prior belief) they ARE allowed to hit the round, white thing that the other team kept throwing at them. Perhaps the ever-fantastic Rocco Baldelli was kind enough to say "hey, guys, it's cool if you hit the baseball. You're supposed to do that!" Or maybe the equally fantastic Carlos Pena passed a note over to the home team's dugout with the words "see ball, hit ball." I don't know. I just wanted an excuse to mention both Pena and Baldelli, because I adore both of them.

More likely, it was the fact that Jeff Neimann has struggled mightily since coming back from the disabled list a few weeks ago, and the Sox were finally able to take advantage of a struggling pitcher. I can't say that before this game, they had been completely inept at the plate. Saturday, sure. They were inept. Sunday, they scored five runs. On a day when Beckett is pitching and Pap is closing, five runs generally gives you the win. Well, just to make sure, the Sox decided to score twelve yesterday. I really hope that they didn't just use up all their offense for the week.

After the first two innings, I was pretty confident that the game wouldn't end before I had to be at work this morning. Luckily, the pace did pick up eventually. I think between the first two innings, there were something like 100 pitches thrown. Our first runs came on a giant 2-run shot by Papi and a solo shot by Beltre (and yes, Victor DID rub his head afterward). After putting up three in the first and second each, the Sox piled on with five more in the fourth, four of which came on Ryan Kalish's grand slam. Man, I love the itty bitty baby Sox. They've kept us alive this year.

Lester threw a bunch of pitches and was done after six, but he was actually pretty damn good, striking out ten and only allowing 2 runs (one in the first and one in the third), and subsequently picking up his 16th win. Nice to see the 'ace' version of him come up big when we need him. Sure, we're all but dead in the water, but isn't it more fun to keep things interesting? We may not make it far, but there's no point in not trying. Our PawSox relief corp had a bit of a rough time, giving up three runs, but were good enough to hold the win. Oki closed it out, and looked good doing so, which is nice for a change. Everything clicked yesterday. I wonder if they can keep it up or if we're going to go back to spotty defense and anemic offense. Based on the pattern of the season, I think I know which I should EXPECT, but I'm hoping for the opposite. Dice-K on the mound tonight. I'll keep one eye open.

Also, in case I haven't mentioned the awesomeness of Mikey lately... the man is playing with a broken rib, because he knows we need him to. Awesomeness or badassery? Perhaps both. I do love that man.

Munchkin Returns: Havoc Will Be Wrought... You Know, Eventually

So Munchkin may not have made a Mike Lowell impact in his first game back, but he was the very first one to admit that he wasn't back to 100%. He also acknowledged that we needed him. And we so did. We needed him back like nobody's business. Seriously, we love Pedroia around these parts because he is unbelievably arrogant, entertaining, and talented. Nice to see athletes back up their big mouths with actual talent. I don't care that he had a bad game. Seeing him in there just makes me feel like they can win. Hopefully that will translate into (more) actual wins.

Dahmer was pretty darned good last night, if I do say so. The team overall has had pretty good success against the Angels this year, so it was nice to be consistant in one aspect of the season, huh? Seven innings and his ERA is hovering around 2.35 for the year. One good, scoreless inning a piece from Doubront and Bowden closed out the game, and the Sox got to leave with a win. Loved it.

You know what else I loved? Grand slams. And home runs that smash into the backs of car windows. I laughed because I expect to see something like that during neighborhood street baseball game, not a baseball game that occurs in a big league stadium. But, we've seen balls hit onto Landsdown before, so it's a park at your own risk sort of situation anyway. All I know is the owner of that car can't be too mad because they got a souvenir out of the damage (small victory, I know). As for Kalish, man did he pick a good night to hit his first grand slam. His first two home runs in the bigs were in two of the most popular stadiums in America. Just goes to show you that he's not intimidated, which bodes well for him. At least in my mind it does. I congratulate him on that wonderful GS. And Torrii Hunter, if you could stop stealing home runs from my team, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Either way, it's hard to complain when the team is winning, even if Ellsbury and Cameron are pretty officially out for the season. We didn't need them anyway. Maybe next year we can get a center fielder whose ribs/abdominal area aren't made of pretzel sticks...

Not for nothing, but seriously, what the hell? I get it. You can't tell a person if they're in pain or not, and it's unfair for calling Ellsbury soft for missing most of the season with cracked ribs. But I think it's safe to say that after all those months he took off to rehab said ribs that the reasonable expectation was that they were healed. He cracked another damn rib! Someone get this kid some calcium, please? We don't need our outfield suffering from brittle bone syndrome. Honestly, I'm starting to get concerned. Also, yes, I am aware I am not a doctor, and I don't know anything about healing ribs and such, but I think it's only fair to assume that he was healed to the point that there were no more fractures in the ribs. And if he wasn't, then he shouldn't have come back. It's not like he was going to change public opinion of him anyway. Also not like he was going to single-handedly save the season. If he's hurt, let him sit out. I don't care. Are these the same ribs that he keep re-cracking? Or, forgive my absolute medical ignorance, do the former cracked ribs make other ribs more susceptible to breaking? I don't know. I don't know, but I feel like our medical staff should, and perhaps therein lies the problem. This has nothing to do with my personal opinion of Jacoby's talent. I haven't been that fond of him since long before his ribs were destroyed by Beltre anyway. I really just want to understand how this guy keeps cracking ribs. That's all./rant

Some guy who used to pitch for the other team is pitching for us tonight. I'm not getting my hopes up, but if Munchkin powers us to a win, I will not be upset.

Santana: Get Better Soon

I sort of don't care that we lost. The Sox staged a good comeback. Sure, it fell a little short, but the didn't give up like I figured they would have. And honestly, after watching their catcher get maimed at our hands, we sort of owed them a win. Kalish felt horrible. You could see it all over his face how bad he felt. Obviously, he didn't do it on purpose, it was just a routine play where the catcher wasn't able to get into position before the collision at home. That doesn't mean it was easy to watch (though NESN apparently thought it was, re-showing it over and over), and every time I watched it, I cringed. Carlos must have been in some kind of shock, because I think I was crying harder than he was. You never want to see that sort of thing happen to anyone, especially to a young kid just trying to earn his keep at the big league level, and double especially not to a catcher, because my God do I love catchers. All I can say is that I hope he heals quickly and that they give him plenty of painkillers until he does heal.

I guess it was sort of fair that we lost Youk to a thumb injury. Yeah, having him in the lineup is a good thing, but I'll admit, I hope he goes on the DL if only to give Mikey Lowell the chance to come up and get his love and admiration from the fans before Theo ungraciously kicks him to the curb. I fail to understand why Theo seems to hate Mike so much. I used to think it was because he was part of the Beckett deal that took Hanley Ramirez away from us, but Theo seems to like Beckett. He's given him two contract extensions. The only thing I can think of now is that Theo is jealous of Mike's unbridled awesomeness, and he just can't bear to look at him and realize that he can never be Mike. I'm sure Mikey gets that a lot, but it's got to be hard being that fantastic.

Oh, but John Lackey, don't think this gets you off the hook, you giant, expensive mistake. I'd like to take an honest survey of Red Sox fans to see if there was anyone not named Theo Epstein that thought the Lackey signing was a good idea. And for five years! He wouldn't give guys like Pedro and Damon five years after their track records with the team, but he gives Lackey, a guy who never seemed to get it done on the big stage against us and was getting hurt more and more frequently, a five year contract. We really have to suffer through four more years of this? I'm especially harsh because I never liked Lackey to begin with, and he's taking up a rotation spot that could be occupied by Timothy... and before any of my hypothetical readers give me stats comparing Lackey to Wakefield, I want to point out that I'm a big fan of sentimentality and there are few players I get more sentimental over than Wakefield. If it were up to me, Trot Nixon would still be in right field. Be happy that I'm not in charge of assembling a team.

Lackey may have had a couple of good games, but I still feel like he needs to prove something... anything... to the Fenway faithful before we can get behind him. You can't fall apart like that to a team like the Indians. Much like the rest of Lackey's season, it's just not good enough. I don't care how many wins he has.

Beckett tonight. At least, Beckett better be tonight, because I bought tickets for tonight's game specifically to see Beckett. I have a history of missing Josh because of injuries, rain, or rotation changes. He's our only starter that I haven't seen live this year. I mean, for goodness sake, I got to see Felix Doubront before I got to see Josh! So I'm looking forward to seeing my favorite Texan pitcher. And he better be ready to show up Lackey because I will not tolerate another performance like last night's.

Also, for people who think it's impossible to get tickets... as soon as they announced that Wednesday night would be Lester vs. Fetus, I went on redsox.com and bought two infield grandstand tickets for face value. It's easier to get 'cheap' tickets now than it's been in half a decade. Take advantage of it. If you don't, don't complain to me that you can't get tickets, because I'll know you're just not trying.